Response to "What Convicts Can Teach Us About Graphic Design

I found the article to be really revealing and somewhat funny. It really shows the power of aesthetics and how they can be used/manipulated to disguise the actual product being sold. What Neil Stansfield did was sneaky and down right awful because he undermined an already troubled organic market and the honest work of a lot of passionate food producers. But what he did was also a hilarious because it showed how branding can increase the perceived value of a product. It's just the startling revelation that I think many of us american's need today because we are too trusting and lazy to do the research and we also need to re-evalute our obsession with brands.

It is really fascinating how the packaging can really influence a purchase. The right colors, font and photo can really transform the retail price of an object and influence the person purchasing. I really appreciated the quote from Malcolm Gladwell from is book Blink. I am currently reading The Tipping Point by him and it is very informative and I feel like I'm actually learning as I read because it keeps repeating the beginning stories/case studies and it links everything together. The psychological impact a label has on us is quite a scary thing.

I really appreciated this article because it was a perfect lesson that teaches us the incomparable value of good branding and design.